Document 49: Excerpts from Frank Purdy's Diary
Diary of Frank Purdy, VFMS, Archives, University of Alaska Fairbanks.
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Chief Gulch, Klondike Mining District
November–December 1898
We are digging with great hopes....This is Christmas month, and we are hoping that we will be able to dig Our presents out of the ground by that time....Things are not very bright just now. There is nothing going on hardly. Men are going out over the ice now, everyday. Probably five thousand will go out this winter....Hear that a petition has been sent to Washington and Ottawa for to have the broken down and destitute miners taken out of the country.
[I]t has been an eventful year in many ways. It has witnessed a war and a great gold excitement. Both have cost many lives and have broken down the health of many others....We make new resolutions today for the new year and break them tomorrow. Man is a Queer Animal and human nature is weak.